The double paddle gear changes actually made me more interested in SRAM than the competition by a long stretch. It's such an elegant solution, and it's quite ridiculous that it wasn't done by the competitors. Chain ring changes are quite uncommon, and you could set a single paddle sweep to change multiple gears ala Campag/Shimano downshift, so dumping gears wouldn't have to be painful. It would be much harder to misshift on the FD as well.

eeksll wrote:i really don't understand wireless. The bike frame is hollow, seems to be a no brainer to shove all the cables in the frame, have 1 battery. Just need some clean solution for the cables from the shifters to the frame.

having said that, some of the current solutions from frame makers regarding electronic cable routing make it look like its still in the R&D phase.

I think Sram took the view that since they missed the boat with electronic shifting they needed a product seen as superior rather than competitive. With World Tour teams dumping Sram groupsets left, right and centre, they certainly need a breakthrough product. Unfortunately, their record of quality control and proper testing is not great. With the wireless shifting used at the Tour Down Under in January, I believe they have until October to launch it to the public under the rules.

I don't think there is a penalty, and if so, I'm not even sure how they would plan to enforce it.

If I'm not mistaken, the purpose of the rule is to prevent racers using super-expensive unavailable to the public prototypes. It's so obvious that SRAM does plan to bring these to market that it would be plain dumb for the UCI to try and ban them based on this. Besides, they've been around since at least the Tour of California last year, which makes it more than nine months anyway that it's been around.

biker jk wrote:I'm not a fan of the front shifting system which requires pressing the buttons on the left and right shifters at roughly the same time.

Yeah but don't you normally do that on a mech system anyway to perform a sequential shift? (I know I do)

If they are clever they could easily make the double button press a sequential shift (activate both derailleurs simultaneously).

XTR Di2 has this feature. It is called Synchro Shifting. Basically you can program it to use a single Up/Down button and at a certain point it changes chainrings and goes back a couple of cogs on the cluster.

greyhoundtom wrote:It should be extremely simple to incorporate bare copper wiring into the CF frame structure able to accessed as needed.

Not really, have you seen how carbon frames are built? Not to mention that carbon fibre is electrically conductive, so any embedded wires would have to be properly shielded so as to not leak current into the frame & short out.

greyhoundtom wrote:It should be extremely simple to incorporate bare copper wiring into the CF frame structure able to accessed as needed.

Not really, have you seen how carbon frames are built? Not to mention that carbon fibre is electrically conductive, so any embedded wires would have to be properly shielded so as to not leak current into the frame & short out.

greyhoundtom wrote:It should be extremely simple to incorporate bare copper wiring into the CF frame structure able to accessed as needed.

Not really, have you seen how carbon frames are built? Not to mention that carbon fibre is electrically conductive, so any embedded wires would have to be properly shielded so as to not leak current into the frame & short out.

Don't forgot this idea Tom, could be a winner for a clean install to a non compatible frame. Colour matched helicopter tape for the MacGyver crowd?

...whatever the road rules, self-preservation is the absolute priority for a cyclist when mixing it with motorised traffic.London Boy 29/12/2011

Paul B wrote:Given the time that Sram have had to develop their product, you would think that something special is on the way. I have Sram Red on my roadie... could be tempted to upgrade if it looked like a winner.

Given their form for underdeveloping things before releasing to the market, I'd recommend waiting a couple of years for them to iron the inevitable bugs out.

Synchro shifting is striking me as a better and better idea, but I'm not sure how we address the gearing. XTR Di2 is running a single cassette and constant ratios up front. Lots more variation in the cassettes for road. A possible fix is speed and cadence sensor interaction but that's serious battery power.

I wouldn't be too surprised if Shimano have some kind of binding patent on the synchro shift that stops others adopting it. Although if it's programmed into the two button operation that might be different enough to get around it (Shimano's synchro shifts at certain points through the gear range so it's a true sequential system with one shifter).

It would make a lot of sense... pressing both buttons just to shift the front and then pressing one button a second or even third time to shift the rear a step or two sounds even clunkier than a mechanical system.

I have no idea what kind of service interface is proposed, but if they have something similar to Shimano's E-Tube then perhaps the shift patterns could be customised to suit the gear combinations used.

Whoever said auto shifting before I reckon isn't that far out there. We already have power meters and garmins measuring stuff why not incorporate that into shifting with some tricky electronics dialed into the persons preferences. A bit like cvt transmission with the paddles to overide it manually if needed otherwise it just shifts automatically according to a complex mathematical formula of active measurements. Wonder if it will happen in my lifetime... Or just go out and buy an electric bike the slacker in me says

Yeah thats where you will have the overide, hit a button to change into manual mode and then whatever gears takes your fancy but for the other 100km in a pack or even a solo ride at constant pace imagine the efficiency pedalling at exactly the watts/power you should be pedalling. Traffic lights. No problem, also have your braking incorporated into the system to down or up change accordingly.

Rod, my experience with power is that your power actually doesn't change at all with regards to cadence. Your TORQUE does... but you will push 350W up a 3% hill at 30kmh no matter what your cadence is. And this is one issue with the auto systems, it doesn't allow for personal needs too well. Sure, you could add in a truckload of extra complexity, like setting a preferred cadence on the fly, cadence vs grade, but it doesn't allow for out of the saddle attacks and a bunch of riding which is absolute poison for FD/RDs.

Not saying it would be perfect to being with. But an idea has to start somewhere

Btw prob is a very good reason why F1 drivers still have manual gearboxes and can see why you would want to keep the skill factor of the human element in play. Just throwing a few ideas around for possible innovation.

Tried one of the first ones in perfh. I have to admit it was great! Very smooth and quiet! I thought changes were very quick but some may suggest EPS is quicker. Looks were great too BUT $4900 for groupo put me off.

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